


Rat-A-Tat

by N_A_M_E_L_E_S_S



Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Child Abuse, Don't Read This, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eventual Happy Ending, Fucked Up, Gun Violence, Heavy Angst, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Murder, Sad Ending, Suicide Attempt, Violence, Weapons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 08:56:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21116123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/N_A_M_E_L_E_S_S/pseuds/N_A_M_E_L_E_S_S
Summary: Karma Akabane has a love-hate relationship with guns.





	Rat-A-Tat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eatfruittt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eatfruittt/gifts).

Karma Akabane has a love-hate relationship with guns.

In a sort of sick way, the sound of gunfire comforted him, lulled him.

because lullabies were too winding, too patternless, but a gun...

you knew what to expect from a gun.

a short, sharp sound that pierced eardrums and hearts.

hearts...

it is oh so easy to break a heart with a gun.

he knew all too well the horrible pain of finding out someone you cared for was killed by a bullet.

and for some odd reason, it was worse than finding out they were stabbed or clubbed...

maybe because it was so sudden, so effortless...

so fucking effortless...

life is taken, no longer existing in this plain, and what did it cost you?

the quick curling of a finger on the trigger.

you didn't work for that, it was just convenient for you. and the person you shot probably deserved to go down better, wrestling bears or a knife fight, not a quick 'BANG! it's over'.

this is what he wanted to shout at the sneering man in the handcuffs as his mother cried over the loss of her husband, and he thought the man might have heard him speak it in his head because he ducked his head as he walked past and gave Karma a crimson smile.

"It was so very easy, I think you'd like the feeling boy..."

these words repeated like a mantra over and over, and they would for years to come.

he hated guns after that.

he changed, after that.

he never wanted anything to be easy.

he studied hard because studying when you haven't slept in 90 hours wasn't easy.

he made complicated meals to eat and reveled in the failure because cooking wasn't easy.

he continued to let his mother not look him in the eye, knowing it was because he looked like his father, because it wasn't easy.

and harder than all of that still?

acting like it was all easy.

that's what the kids at school all said.

"it's all so easy for him!"

and every time they said it...

he died a bit more inside.

so he changed around them too, glaring and spitting venom with his tongue.

his tongue...

the way he acted around them...

it was fucked up, the way he acted like the very thing he despised, a gun.

his tongue was the bullet, and his nerves, the trigger.

and it was so. very. easy...

his mother met someone.

he was kind and jolly, even bought Karma a lollipop when he met him.

he didn't take it.

what if it was poisoned?

the man told him that he was far too wary for a twelve-year-old.

he'd just turned to look at his mother, grinning darkly when she didn't meet his eyes.

"at least one of us is moving on." he'd hissed, and watched her flinch.

because she could hear the hidden message.

"you're leaving your child behind." he'd hissed and watched her flinch...

he got into a fight a month after.

his mother didn't look worried, he didn't expect her too.

but she did look him in the eyes, finally.

she was moving on, then.

"keep it off school grounds." was all she'd said.

and he smiled because of course, she didn't care.

and his smile said everything he needed to say.

'this is your fault. I'm breaking apart and you're just standing there. how can you just stand there? I'm breaking. help.'

she lowered her eyes again but for a different reason this time.

Guilt.

and he sneered because if she actually felt bad, she'd fucking do something instead of just standing there and pretending he wasn't shattering before her very eyes.

after that, it didn't matter.

it didn't matter how many fights he got into.

It didn't matter how many tests he aced.

It didn't matter how many times he came home bleeding, crying, and laughing at his breaking sanity.

because she didn't care.

he found a bottle of some strange cinnamon whiskey in the cupboard when they went out on a date one night.

he stashed it in his room, a plan unfurling in his now twisted mind.

the next day he watched his mother open the cupboard and freeze.

that's when he showed himself stepping down the stairs and asking loudly where the painkillers were stored...

because he had a killer headache.

he watched his mother suck in air, and her hand start to shake violently on the cupboard door.

and it was so very easy to down two painkillers right in front of her and watch as she finally, finally met his eyes again.

but he was done pleading for her help, so very done.

she deserved to see his pain. she deserved to hurt for ignoring it.

so instead of pleading with a smile, he grinned with sharp incisors, winked, and with all the hatred and poison he could muster in one sentence asked the question he knew would hurt her more than anything else.

"well, what did you think was gonna happen?"

he watched her eyes widen in horror, and her skin go ghostly pale...

and the sight made him smile, made butterflies of joy dance in his chest...

no, not butterflies...

spiders.

wriggling, squirming, venomous spiders.

and it was pretty messed up, he surmised, the way he enjoyed his mother's pain so much...

but this was revenge, right? Karma was what she'd named him after all.

he reveled in his victory for hours after that...

completely forgetting that her new boyfriend was coming for dinner.

he didn't know why he listened when she called him to the dinner table, curiosity probably.

he was... curious... about the man she'd chosen to replace father with.

he hated him.

because he wasn't Father.

and he never would be.

so when the man had started up small talk with him...

he'd just about snarled.

Hate was such a complicated emotion...

not at all easy.

Karma loved the feeling.

then, towards the end of dinner with a very disheartened man, a guilty woman, and a broken boy, something happened.

Karma leaned back in his chair, golden eyes cloudy as a sudden wave of sadness hit him.

it was all the man's fault, he'd mentioned dragons.

Karma's father had loved dragons.

Karma could remember the way his eyes lit up when he talked about them, how when Karma had gotten into wood carving he'd insisted he made him a dragon...

which was now under Karma's bed, alone and forgotten.

Karma bit his lip as memories wrecked his mind like a bullet through a glass pane, leaving only shards of sanity in its wake.

every memory was a bullet to the head...

every word from the man's lips was a hand cocking the gun that would be his end.

he might have to cry later, he realized.

he didn't like to cry, it would be the first time since Dad died if he did.

and some small, still hopeful part of him childishly wished for his mother's comfort, it longed for him to just tell his mother that he was on the brink of tears.

so he did...

indirectly.

"I think it's going to rain..." he said, looking seriously in her direction.

and maybe she understood, maybe she didn't, but she merely shrugged and sighed.

"I don't care."

and with that, that small, still hopeful part of him was crushed like the fading cherry on a cigarette.

he let that fuel this new complicated hatred in his gut as he grinned, all teeth.

"oh, I knew that!" he drawled madly, and she must have heard his tone change because her eyes became annoyed.

"that's not what I meant and you know it."

those spiders were back in his chest again, stringing webs around his heartstrings like a protective barrier, keeping him from feeling bad for the things about to fall from his lips.

little did he know just how long these webs would be in place, or just how many he would hurt before he removed them.

"lying to yourself is bad for your health, you should stop denying the fact that you don't care about me anymore."

the words were cold and laced with poison, and he watched his mother shift uncomfortably...

still not meeting his fucking eyes.

"I-I do care about you..."

it sounded hollow, void of any real emotion.

that was all he needed to know.

but still...

maybe...?

"look me in the eyes then," he whispered, voice heavy with pain and the slightest hint of hope.

his tone said everything he needed to say.

'this is your last chance. look at me. save me. I need you. last chance. help me.'

she...

did. 

not. 

move.

"Well?" he demanded. 

silence.

"WELL!?"

silence.

10 seconds.

20.

30.

she wasn't moving.

and her boy toy was silent, watching with wide eyes.

Karma paused, and the realization finally hit him.

she doesn't care.

like- he knew that! he'd accused her of it and tormented her for it, but now that she confirmed it...

his heart was cracking open, and the spiders weren't there to keep it together.

his sanity was breaking to pieces, and his heart hurt more than anything.

tears burned in his eyes, and he wished with all his might that the spiders would come back.

he needed their webs to hold him together.

but how...?

ah. the spiders came when he hurt people.

and he was desperate not to break.

his heart was breaking, bleeding, so he grinned a crimson grin and sneered.

"And you wonder why I hate you."

he watched the bullet leave his mouth and pierce right into her heart with a smile.

he watched her face fall and her heart just break all over again, watched her eyes fill with tears...

and he didn't feel a fucking thing for her.

what he did feel, however, was the wriggling, squirming, comforting feeling of spiders in his chest, wrapping their webs around his broken heart.

it didn't fix it, and it was far from a bandage, but Karma guessed that if he kept hurting people...

then he'd never have to feel this again...

right?

all he had to was hurt a lot of people...

then he'd be okay?

and well, before, he hadn't wanted to hurt people at all...

but if someone would have told him it felt this damn good...

he offered his very first sadistic grin, watching the adults present shiver.

he stood then, leaving the dining hall and heading for his room.

he fell onto the bed, carefully settling a hand over his chest where he could feel the spiders still writhing.

it was... so warm...

just then, the glimmering of light on glass caught his attention, and he looked up.

oh.

the whiskey.

...he grinned, tears shining in his eyes.

well, what did she think was going to happen?

so he picked it up...

and forgot everything...

and for the next few months, everything stayed stagnant.

his mother didn't say much to him, and her boy toy was too afraid to go near him. he built up a reputation at school, and now he was feared by everyone.

he continued to torment people whenever he could. left and right he'd call names and build insecurities...

all because it kept him together.

and his mother watched it all happen, unable to accept the fact her baby was turning into a monster.

she got calls from the school all the time, 'your son is bullying students', but she never said a word, and because his grades were good, they never did anything more than that.

Karma had rejected empathy at that point.

he hadn't realized just how badly his words affected people...

until a body was found in a bathroom stall, dead by overdose.

it had been one of the kids he tormented daily. for no particular reason, the boy had just been unlucky.

he hadn't meant any of the things he said, he just said them thoughtlessly.

and on the day that it happened he nearly screamed when he found out. dispair was all he could feel, and self-loathing curled like a spitting viper in his stomach, sinking its teeth in and ejecting its venom.

he'd killed someone.

and maybe he didn't mean to, didn't want to, but he did.

he wasn't so nieve to think that anyone or anything else was to blame.

he was a murderer.

the hall monitor didn't stop him on his way out of school.

he couldn't meet Karma's eyes, it seemed.

and no one else stopped him either, the police and news broadcasters were around the place in a swarm, so no one noticed him leaving.

He felt as if his lungs were being crushed, he couldn't breathe, and no matter how far he ran, he could still hear the echoes of things he'd said to that poor boy.

this was his fault. all his fault. he'd killed someone.

the thought circled in his brain like...

like the echo of a gunshot.

the very thought sent his mind back, back to that fateful day he lost everything he ever cared about.

he hadn't been in the house when it happened.

he was playing in the back yard.

he heard the shot ring out.

and he heard his father's body hit the floor.

and when he rushed inside...

suppressed memories welled up in Karma's mind, ones that made his breath sob out and his legs run even faster.

cold, lifeless golded eyes. eyes that once matched a flickering fire in wildness and warmth, now dulled to a smudged amber-brown.

and so, so much blood.

gunshots rang out in Karma's head, and before he realized it, he was home.

he was gasping for air, legs shaking as he reached the door, his lungs burning.

he...

he just wanted to disappear.

he'd go to his room and hide under the covers. maybe when he woke up this nightmare would be over.

that was it, this was all a dream! a horrible, horrible dream, and when he woke up his mother would be there to whisper sweet nothings and his father would make him their favorite meal of strawberry pancakes while his mother chided their unhealthy habits.

with that thought in mind, he pushed the door open, fully intending to run right past his mother and up the stairs to his room.

"-This report was brought to you from Kunugigaoka middle school. please, if you know of anyone who's suffering, don't hesitate to call our hotline at 777-821-909. that's 777-82-"

his mouth became dry and his stomach lurched.

his mother stared down at the remote she'd just used to turn off the television, then her gaze slowly swept to Karma.

she knew.

he could see it in her horrified gaze, and what was worse?

it was with this expression that she finally met his eyes.

hot tears burned his eyes, a hiccup bubbling from his throat as they spilled down his cheeks.

now...

now it was Karma who couldn't look his mother in the eyes.

he rushed past her, up the stairs to his room.

she made no move to stop him.

he slammed the door shut so hard behind him it shook the house, sinking to his knees.

he hadn't cried in so very long, but now?

Karma Akabane was merely a broken shell of what he used to be.

when had it all come to this!? what had he done to deserve this!? no, no he didn't deserve to pity himself, he'd killed someone!

and he'd hurt so, so many people...

he deserved...

he deserved to _**die**_ for what he'd done!

"FUCK! he screamed, slamming his fist into the wall beside the door.

the motion vibrated through the wall, the force just enough to knock down a box that had been teetering on his shelf for far too long.

the shelf he'd filled with his father's things because his mother was going to throw them away...

he hadn't looked through them, he couldn't.

but as the box hit the ground he had no choice, he watched it bounce, watched the silver whatever it was inside clang to the floor before skidding towards him.

Karma sucked in air. it was...

his dad's old handgun.

the gunshots plaguing his mind rang our even louder, and he sucked in gasps of air as the tears rushed out even faster.

and what was worse?

his father had been a huge weapon enthusiast. the prided himself, above all else...

on the fact, his gun was always loaded.

but even through the panic in his mind one word registered, even above the fired gunshots that continued to deffen him, that used to comfort him...

_ **DIE...** _

now.

downstairs at this moment, a certain woman was deliberating with herself.

maybe if this were a different time, a different place, she would have gone up to her son's room, just in time to see him with his lips wrapped around the barrel of a gun.

she'd be just in time to stop it.

but that's not what happened.

instead, she decided to go make Karma some tea. tea made everything better, and she knew better than anyone that Karma needed 'better' right now.

she'd make tea, then talk to Karma. everything would be fine after that, she'd finally start taking charge and being a mother again.

as she stood at the counter bouncing two tea bags in the hot water, Karma shoved the barrel of that gun far enough down his own throat he choked on it.

as she stirred the sugar into the warm berry liquid, Karma sobbed because right along with the metal of the gun he could taste the salt of his tears.

as she hummed in satisfaction at a tea well made, Karma was rattling off apologies to anyone he'd ever hurt, including his mother.

as she picked up the cup of tea to take to her beloved son...

the sound of a gunshot split the air.

Karma Akabane Had A Love-Hate Relationship With Guns, but he didn't know that that was how he'd meet his end.

he didn't know that his mother still loved him more than anything else.

he didn't know that not a year later he'd meet a blue-haired boy who would change his life forever.

he didn't know that not a year after that, the moon would explode in the sky.

he didn't know that, because of his absence...

the earth would very soon follow.

Karma Akabane was a boy who once had a love-hate relationship with guns. and without him, this story can't unfold as it should.

perhaps...

perhaps if certain events hadn't happened, or even happened in a different order...

perhaps the world could have been saved.

perhaps _**he**_ could have been saved.

_ **Karma Akabane had a love-hate relationship with guns.**_


End file.
